True, we don’t need everyone to be heterosexual, but heterosexuality is what keeps the species going. That’s why it’s the only sexuality that matters in a biological sense; and biology rules.
So I assume you are for premarital sex and against monogamy, then? Biology rules, after all.
The bathroom issue. Their minuscule number doesn’t require legal protection to use whatever bathrooms they feel most comfortable with.
I am half with you on this one, but their numbers don't mean squat. Rights are rights. But I think when it comes to the bathroom issue we're not talking about "rights", we're talking about "special privilege", which nobody is due. If you write a law that starts out with "Transgender people" then you are carving out a special privilege, not a "right". To write a law that defines a "right" it has to talk simply about "People" in a general sense. I am against special privilege.
HOWEVER, if you approach it a different way and instead your law says, “PEOPLE have a right to feel comfortable and safe when using public restrooms”, THEN I don’t have a problem with it at all, even though it has the exact same effect, allowing transgender people access to the bathroom they feel comfortable and safe in. As long as you’re not specifically carving out a special privilege, I’m cool with it.
Just have lots and lots of one-person-at-a-time-use-restrooms, with a lock on the door. Everyone can use the same bathrooms individually and privately. Problem solved.
TimB said: For all we know a rise in sexualities beyond heterosexuality is the natural course of nature in contingencies of overcrowding, chaos, and stress.
Oneguy said: That’s an old theory which implies a teleological aspect to nature, but we know nature doesn’t work that way.
TimB replies: My statement doesn’t need to imply that nature could create off brand sexualities in order to account for contingencies. That indeed, is not how nature works. Nature can’t decide, hmm, too much crowding, chaos, and stress, I guess I better cook up some alternate sexualities.
But what could conceivably happen in the course of natural events is that populations that were too successful in growing, to the point that the excess threatened the whole, then in the long course of history, the populations that declined naturally, by virtue of sexualities alternate to heterosexuality, may have survived better than ones that continued whole hog reproduction.
Easter Island is an example of a population that was too successful for their contingencies. If a lot of them had become homosexual, maybe they would not have been overpopulated to the point that they wiped out their civilization.
Then there is the possibility that the typical hormones present in various human conditions could naturally lead to homosexuals being spawned. But that, in itself, might be a mechanism that developed via natural evolutionary processes.
It’s possible that throughout the history of our species there have always been LGBTQ(…) individuals, but evolution kept their numbers low. Now that we have no evolutionary pressures working on us, the numbers of LGBTQ people are on the rise. Same as lots of other genetically passed on traits that don’t give a survival advantage, but are on the increase now that those traits don’t affect survival.
Another possibility is that there has always been the same ratio of LGBTQ people in the population, but they were so discriminated against that they stayed hidden for safety’s sake.
Just have lots and lots of one-person-at-a-time-use-restrooms, with a lock on the door. Everyone can use the same bathrooms individually and privately. Problem solved.
Well that makes sense for new construction. The problem is the 85% of restrooms that already exist in buildings.
Another possibility is that there has always been the same ratio of LGBTQ people in the population, but they were so discriminated against that they stayed hidden for safety’s sake.
Yes, that's what I meant by
I’m inclined to think there has always been the same percentage of LGBTQ people in the world, but (in certain parts of the world) people are able to talk about things they didn’t have words for ’till recently, and some are willing to be open about it.
I should have added at the end, "because they feel safer now."
The bonobos, the species that is perhaps most like us on Earth, seem to love all the variations. (I don’t know their stance on butt stuff, but I’m guessing they wouldn’t have a problem with it.)
It would be relatively inexpensive to replace stalls walls and doors with floor to ceiling separators. Maybe plastic diffusers at the top so they didn’t have to be individually lighted. And get rid of the urinals, of course.
The bonobos, the species that is perhaps most like us on Earth, seem to love all the variations. (I don’t know their stance on butt stuff, but I’m guessing they wouldn’t have a problem with it.)
I think chimps are slightly more similar to us, but regardless, Bonobo behavior is more complex than “they like everything”. Their same-sex activity is never exclusive and seems to be primarily about status among female group leaders. Male same-sex behavior is much less common and found more often in juveniles.
TimB: So anyway, homosexuality is natural. All the other letters, seem to me to just be different flavors on the hetero to homo spectrum.
Oneguy: Natural, yes. Normal, no.
TimB: Not normal? How do you mean? A small percentage of the population? If so, that would mean that people with red hair and blue eyes are extraordinarily abnormal. (as they represent a MUCH smaller % of the population than do gays)
I think we share the same % of genes with Chimps as we do with Bonobos. It’s just the % we don’t share with Chimps and the % we don’t share with Bonobos, is not the same stuff, or something like that.
You can be more like a Chimp if you want. I prefer the Bonobos.
